Speech #1090134982

And Mr. Chiswick replied: But low skilled natives are here. And lowskilled immigrants. do we want them in? In unlimited numbers. I would add. What about highskilled immigrants? What did Mr. Chiswick say about that? Twothirds of the immigrants coming into the United States annually come in under kinship criteria. That is chain migration. Only about 7 percent are skill tested. For only about 7 percent do we really ask the question what will you contribute to the American economy? He goes on to say: We need to alter our immigration policies to increase the focus on attracting high ability. highskilled immigrants. What we want to do is attract those immigrants who would have the largest positive contribution to the American economy. and they will be highly skilled immigrants. immigrants with high skills in literacy. numeracy. scientific knowledge. technical training. Current immigration law pays very. very little attention to the skills that immigrants bring to the United States. That is his statement. It is something we need to think about as we pass a bill that pretends to be comprehensive. Professor Harry Holder. also testifying at our hearing. who was associate dean and professor of public policy at Georgetown University. another pretty good university. said this about the impact of lowskilled American workers: There are jobs in industries like construction that I think are more appealing to native born workers. And many native born. lowincome men might be interested in more of those jobs. although employers often prefer the immigrants. especially in residential construction. Now. absent the immigrants. employers might need to raise those wages and improve those conditions of work to entice native born workers into those construction. agriculture. janitorial. food preparation jobs. I believe that when immigrants are illegal. they do more to undercut the wages of native born workers because the playing field isnt level and the employers dont have to pay them market wages. He was then asked about future immigration policy. and he said: I agree with Professor Chiswick. We are not ready to open the floodgates of immigration. We will continue to have controls on immigration. And we need to find costeffective and humane ways to limit those immigrants. So we didnt get five hearings. We didnt get a national dialog.